DSDA 1995: Data Science and Society using R

Author

Jason Byers

Published

January 22, 2025

Welcome to our course website! Here you can find links to everything you’ll need this semester:

The course syllabus
Submit assignments at our course HuskyCT page (mortarboard icon in the upper right).
I will post code, data, and lecture notes on the course GitHub repository (the octocat icon in the upper right).

Course Description

The course aims to introduce students to the foundational concepts of data science and its impact on modern society. The course will develop students’ technical skills in data literacy, wrangling, analysis, and visualization, while fostering an understanding of how data science can be applied to real life issues.

Course Objectives

Together, we will strive for your individual and collective success in achieving the learning outcomes of this course. At the conclusion of this course, students will be able to:

Students will develop a foundational understanding of data science principles and their societal implications.
Gain proficiency in data wrangling, analysis, visualization, and basic programming. Cultivate data/computer/programming literacy to support further study in data science.
Analyze real-world issues through data-driven approaches.
Prepare for advanced studies and careers by understanding the skills and knowledge required in data science.

Course Materials

To maximize access to this class, we will use some textbooks, videos, and other resources, with a focus on the following:

Primary Text (R4DS): Wickham, Hadley, Mine Cetinkaya-Rundel, and Garrett Grolemund. 2023. R for Data Science: Import Tidy, Transform, Visualize, and Model Data. 2nd Edition. O’Reilly Media. This book is freely available online. It is also available in paperback, if you prefer a hard copy. Warning: some content and the numbering system differs between print and online versions; I will exclusively refer to the free online version.
Reference Text (GCR): Lovelace, Robin, Jakub Nowosad, and Jannes Muenchow. 2019. “Geocomputation with R.” CRC Press. This book is freely available online. It is also available in paperback, if you prefer a hard copy. Warning: some content and the numbering system differs between print and online versions; I will exclusively refer to the free online version.
Reference Text (USDR): Engel, Claudia A. 2019. “Using Spatial Data with R.” This book is freely available online.
Primary Text (MSR): Wickham, Hadley. 2021. “Mastering Shiny: Build Interactive Apps, Reports and Dashboards Powered by R.” O’Reilly Media. This book is freely available online.

Reference Texts

Reference Text (HOPR): Grolemund, Garrett. 2014. Hands-On Programming with R: Write Your Own Functions and Simulations. O’Reilly Media. This book is freely available online. It is also available in paperback, if you prefer a hard copy. Warning: some content and the numbering system differs between print and online versions; I will exclusively refer to the free online version.
Reference Text (DSB): Cetinkaya-Rundel, Mine. 2021. Data Science in a Box. This book is freely available online.